Unwrapping the Neurosurgeon's Heart
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Charlotte Hawkes
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CHAPTER ONE
‘ANOUK?’ THE RESUS WARD’S sister poked her head around the Resus bay curtain. ‘Are you running the seven-year-old casualty who fell off a climbing frame?’
‘I am.’ Anouk spun quickly around. ‘Is she in?’
‘Yes, the HEMS team are on the roof now.’
‘Thanks.’ Nodding grimly, Anouk turned back to her team for a final check. ‘Everyone happy? Got your gear?’
The only thing she was missing was the neurosurgeon. The department had been paged ten minutes ago but they must be swamped up there. Still, she needed a neurosurgeon for the young kid. Sucking in a steadying breath, she ducked out of the bay, and slammed straight into Moorlands General’s hottest commodity.
Solomon Gunn.
Six feet three of solid muscle, more suited to a Hollywood kickboxing stunt guy than the average neurosurgeon, didn’t even shift under her flexing palms as the faintest hint of a woody, citrusy scent filled her nostrils.
Her skin prickled instantly. How could it not? It was all Anouk could do to snatch her arms down to her sides and take a step back, telling herself that the alien sensation currently rolling through her was nothing more than a basic physiological reaction.
Instinct. Nothing more.
She couldn’t possibly be so unlucky as to have the Smoking Gun as the neurosurgeon on her case, could she? And, for the record, she didn’t think much of the idiot who had bestowed that moniker on him. Not that it would be unlucky for the poor girl who had fallen, of course. As he was one of the up-and-coming stars of the region, the girl couldn’t be in better hands than Sol’s.
If only the guy weren’t so devastating when it came to women who weren’t in his care.
He practically revelled in his reputation as a demigod neurosurgeon and out-of-hours playboy. And still it seemed that almost every woman in the hospital wanted him.
Including, to Anouk’s absolute shame, herself.
Not that she would ever, ever let another living soul know that fact. Solomon Gunn was the antithesis of absolutely everything she should want in a man.
Yet, caught in the rich, swirling, cognac-hued depth of his gaze, something inside her shifted and rolled deliciously, nonetheless.
She’d only been at Moorlands General for a couple of months and been in Resus when Sol had, but so far they’d never worked together on the same casualty. A traitorous part of her almost hoped that tonight was different.
‘Dr Anouk Hart, I believe.’
‘Yes. Are you here for my case?’ Self-condemnation made her tone sharper than she might otherwise have intended.
‘I don’t know.’ He grinned, as though he could see right through her. ‘Which is your case?’
‘Seven-year-old girl; climbing frame,’ she bullet-pointed.
‘Then I’d say you’re in luck. I’m here for you.’
Her heart kicked. Anouk told herself it was frustration, nothing more.
‘Lucky me,’ she managed, rolling her eyes.
‘Lucky both of us.’
He flicked his eyes up and down her in frank appraisal. On another man it would have appeared arrogant, maybe even lewd. But Sol wasn’t another man; he pulled the act off in such a way that it left her body practically sizzling. An ache spearing its way right down through her until she felt it right there. Right between her legs.
What was the matter with her?
The man was damned near lethal.
‘You might be accustomed to women throwing themselves at you.’ She jerked her head over his shoulder to where a group of her colleagues was shamelessly clustered around the central desk and shooting him flirty smiles and applauding gestures. ‘However, I certainly don’t intend to be one of them.’
‘Oh, they’re just enjoying the home-made mince pies I brought in.’
‘Sorry, what?’
‘It is Christmas, Anouk.’ His grin ramped up and she almost imagined she could feel those straight, white teeth against her skin. ‘No need to be a Grinch.’
He couldn’t have any idea quite how direct a hit his words were. She hated Christmas. It held no happy memories for her. It never had. Not that she was about to let Sol know that.
‘Home-made? By whom? Your housekeeper?’
‘My own fair hands.’ He waggled them in her face and she tried not to notice how utterly masculine they looked. Not exactly the delicate hands people usually associated with a surgeon.
Those hands had worked magic on hundreds of patients. But it wasn’t quite the same kind of magic she was imagining now.
Anouk blinked hard and tried to drag her mind back to the present.
‘That’s as may be, but I don’t think it’s your mince pies they’re interested in.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. They’re pretty good, if I do say so myself.’
‘So modest.’ She snorted. ‘Well, if you’ve stopped playing Great British Bake-Off with your home-made mince pies...’
‘“Playing Great British Bake-Off”?’ He flashed a wolfish smile, which made her skin positively goosebump. ‘I would ask if you’re passive aggressive with everyone, or if it’s just me, but, given the reputation you’ve already garnered amongst your colleagues in the few months you’ve been here, I fear I already know the answer.’
She shouldn’t take the bait. She mustn’t.
‘And what reputation would that be?’ she demanded, regretting it instantly.
His eyes gleamed mischievously. She half expected him not to answer her.
‘Focussed, dedicated, a good doctor.’
‘Oh.’ She bit her lip. ‘Well...then...thanks.’
‘Even if you do walk around like you’ve got a stick up your behind.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Heat flooded her cheeks. She could feel it.
‘Sorry.’ He held his hands up as though appeasing her. ‘Their words, not mine. But you have to admit, you are a little bit uptight. A little prim and proper.’
She opened her mouth to reply, then snapped it closed again.
If she was honest, she’d heard worse about herself. At best, she was considered to be a good—even great—doctor to her patients, but cold and unapproachable to her colleagues. A bit aloof.
The only person who knew different was Saskia; her best friend since their Hollywood A-list mothers had declared each other their nemesis, over twenty-five years ago.
‘Of course, I don’t think that,’ Sol continued, clearly enjoying himself. Not that she blamed him—he couldn’t have any idea of her inner turmoil. ‘But then, most women have a way of...melting around me.’
‘How do you get away with that?’ She shook her head. ‘Do you actually enjoy living up to all the worst stereotypes of your own Lothario reputation?’
‘Let me guess, in your book that’s wrong?’
‘Oh, you’re incorrigible,’ Anouk snapped. ‘Though I assume you’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘You mean it wasn’t?’ He clasped his hand over his heart, laughing. ‘I’m cut to the quick.’
A deep, rich, sinful sound, which had no right to flood through her the way it did. She hated how her body reacted to him, despite every order from her brain to do the opposite. Tipping her head back, she jutted her chin out a fraction and ignored him.
‘All we know so far is that we have a seven-year-old on her way having fallen approximately nine feet off a climbing frame in a park...’
‘She landed on her head and suffered loss of consciousness for a minute or so,’ he concluded. ‘The heli-med team are on the roof now and our response team has gone to meet them.’
‘Right.’ She didn’t do a very good job of covering her surprise. ‘So, if you could just stop making eyes at the female contingent of our team long enough to concentrate on the casualty, that would be great.’
The amusement disappeared from his face in a split second. His tone was more than a little cool.
‘I always put my patients ahead of anything else.’
She actually felt chastened.
‘Yes... I... I know that.’ Anouk flicked out a tongue to moisten her lips. ‘I apologise, and I take it back. Your professional reputation is faultless.’
Better than faultless. He was an esteemed neurosurgeon, rapidly heading to the top of his field.
‘It’s just my personal reputation that languishes in muddier waters?’ he asked, apparently reading her thoughts.
But at least the smile was back, his previous disapproval seemingly forgotten. Still, Anouk was grateful when the doors at the far end of the trauma area pulled open with a hiss and the helicopter team brought their patient in.
In an instant, Anouk was across the room and in the Resus bay, vaguely aware that Sol had fallen in quickly beside her.
‘This is Isobel, she’s seven years old and normally fit and well. No allergies or medications, and up to date with her jabs. Around one hour ago she was climbing on a rope basket climbing frame and was approximately nine feet up when she had an altercation with another child and fell, landing on her face or head with a loss of consciousness of perhaps one minute. She has a laceration above her left eyebrow and she has also lost two of her teeth.’
‘Okay.’ Anouk nodded, stepping forward. ‘Thanks.’
‘This is Isobel’s sister, Katie.’ The doctor turned to where another young girl was standing, and Anouk didn’t know when Sol had moved but he was next to her. ‘Katie was with her sister when she fell, and has accompanied her whilst Mum is on her way.’
Strangely, Katie lifted her head to Sol and offered a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of her head, but Anouk didn’t have time to dwell on that; she needed to help her patient.
‘Hi, Isobel, I’m Anouk, the doctor who is going to be looking after you. Do you remember what happened, sweetheart?’ She turned to her team, who had already stepped into action. ‘Two drips in, guys?’
Isobel muttered something incoherent.
‘Can you open your eyes for me, Isobel?’ Anouk asked, checking her young patient’s pupils. ‘Good, that’s a good girl. Now, can you take a really big, deep breath and hold it for me?’
She palpitated the girl’s chest and stomach.
‘You’re doing really well, sweetheart. Can you talk to me? Have you got any pain in your tummy?’
‘No,’ Isobel managed tearfully. ‘Katie?’
‘Your sister is right here, my love. We just need to check you over to see if you hurt yourself when you fell, and then she’ll be able to come and talk to you.’
‘Yep, got blood,’ one of her team confirmed.
‘Great. Okay, and let’s give her two point five milligrams of morphine.’ She looked back at the child. ‘That will help with the pain, all right, sweetheart? Good girl.’
Quickly and efficiently Anouk and her team continued to deal with their patient, settling the girl, doing their observations, and making her as comfortable as they could. Finally, Anouk had a chance to update the girl’s mum, but it was still only the sister, who couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven herself, who was waiting outside the bay. Anouk remembered how Isobel had asked for Katie, and not her mum.
‘Katie, isn’t it?’ Anouk asked softly, going over to the worried little girl and sitting on the plastic seat next to her.
The girl nodded.
‘Mum isn’t here yet?’
‘No.’ Katie shook her head before fixing Anouk with a direct gaze, her voice holding a level of maturity that set warning bells off in Anouk’s head. ‘But you can talk to me. I’m eleven and I can answer any questions you need me to about my sister. I’m responsible for her.’
An image of Sol and Katie exchanging a concerned look crossed her mind.
Was the girls’ mum at work? Uninterested? She knew those feelings all too well. Still, she had her own protocol to follow now.
‘I understand that, and you seem like a very good sister,’ Anouk confirmed, standing back up. ‘But I think it’s better if I talk to your mum when she gets here.’
‘No, wait.’ Katie stood up quickly, glancing at her and then across to the team.
It took a moment for Anouk to realise that she wasn’t looking at her sister so much as looking at Sol.
‘You know each other?’
‘I need to speak to him.’ Katie nodded.
‘He’s just looking after your sister right now.’
‘I know, he’s a neurosurgeon.’ The young girl clucked her tongue impatiently as though she thought Anouk was treating her like a baby. ‘And you’re probably going to be taking Izzy to scan her head and see if there is any damage from her fall.’
Anouk tried not to show her surprise.
‘We will be.’
‘Well, when he is free, Sol will come and talk to me,’ Katie said confidently, but Anouk didn’t miss the fear that flashed briefly in the girl’s eyes.
As if sensing the moment, Sol lifted his head and looked straight at them. Then, with a quick word to one of the senior nurses in the team, he made his way over.
‘You doing okay, Katie?’
Quiet, professional, compassionate. It had been one thing to see Sol working from across a ward, to know of his reputation as a good doctor, a good neurosurgeon, but it was another actually to witness it first-hand.
Her mother had always ranted about the beauty of a brilliant actor playing a different role from the one the world was used to them adopting. That moment when the audience suddenly realised that it had forgotten who the actor was and got lost in the character.
Watching Sol at work made it almost impossible to remember his reputation as a womaniser.
And it certainly wasn’t helping to smother her inconvenient crush on him.
‘The doctor won’t tell me anything,’ Katie replied flatly.
‘I’d rather explain to Mum.’ Anouk bit back her irritation as Katie and Sol exchanged a glance, hating the feeling that she was missing a vital piece of information.
‘Bad day?’ he asked Katie simply.
She bit her lip. ‘She can’t even get up today. But she was resting so I thought Izzy and I could have an hour at the park before we went back and started our chores. There’s no way she will be able to get here on her own.’
‘I’m on call so I can’t leave.’ He rubbed his face thoughtfully. ‘But I could call Malachi. He can help if she’d be happy about that?’
‘Yes.’ Katie’s relief was evident. ‘Please call him. I’ll text Mum.’
Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, Anouk tried to control her heart, which had decided to pick up its pace as she listened to the conversation. It was aggravating feeling as though she wasn’t entirely following, but the tone of it seemed all too painfully familiar. Or was she just reading too much into it?
Still, she had nowhere else to be for the moment; a nurse was with Isobel and they were waiting on a few results before they could move her to CT.
‘In the meantime,’ Sol’s voice dragged her back to the moment, ‘let me try to explain to Dr Anouk here why she can speak to you.’
Katie narrowed her eyes uncertainly.
‘You’re going to have to trust her,’ Sol cajoled. ‘I do.’
They were just words to ease the concerns of a kid, Anouk knew that, and yet she was helpless to stop a burst of...something from going off inside her chest.
‘The more I understand, Katie, the more I can help.’ She fixed her gaze on the young girl, whose penetrating stare was unsettling.
‘Okay,’ Katie conceded at last, before turning back to Sol. ‘But you’ll call Malachi?’
‘Right now,’ Sol confirmed.
For a moment it looked as though her face was about to crumple, the pressure of the decisions clearly getting to her. But then she pulled herself together, sinking down onto her chair and fishing out a mobile phone to begin texting. As if there wasn’t time for self-indulgent emotions.
As if she was a lot older than her years with far too much adult responsibility.
Anouk fought back the wave of grief that swelled inside her. All too familiar. All too unwelcome. Coming out of nowhere.
‘Anouk.’
She snapped her head up to find that Sol was beckoning her, his eyes on Katie to ensure she was preoccupied as he moved across the room.
Wordlessly, Anouk followed, letting him lead her around the curtain and into the central area, keeping his voice low.
‘Katie and Isobel are young carers. They look after their mum, who suffers from multiple sclerosis. Some days are good, some not so good. Today, unfortunately, is a bad day, which means Michelle can’t even get out of bed without their help.’
‘I see.’ Anouk breathed in as deeply and as unobtrusively as she could and tried to fight back the sense of nausea that rushed her. Her own situation had been vastly different from the girls’, but the similarities were there. ‘Dad?’
‘Died in an RTA two years ago. He’d just popped out to get cough mixture.’
She exhaled sharply, the injustice of it scraping at her.
‘Who’s Malachi?’
‘My brother. He’ll go round and help Michelle. See if there’s anything he can do to get her here. Otherwise you keep me informed throughout and we’ll agree as much as we can tell Katie. She’s mature, but she’s still only eleven and she has enough to deal with.’
‘Isn’t there anyone else?’ She already knew the answer, but she still had to ask. ‘Any other family member?’
‘No. Let me see what I can do but there are a few people I could call as a last resort. They’re from the centre and they can at least sit with Katie so that she isn’t alone until my shift finishes or I can get someone to cover for me.’
‘Why would you do that?’ She folded her arms across her chest as though the action could somehow contain the churn of...feelings that were swirling inside her, so close to the surface that she was afraid they might spill out.
She wanted to pretend that it was just empathy for Katie, the familiarity of a young girl who had far too much responsibility for her tender age. But she had a feeling it was also to do with Sol. His obvious concern and care for the young girl and her sister and mother was irritatingly touching.
She was ashamed to admit that she’d been attracted enough to the man when she’d thought he was just a decent doctor but also a gargantuan playboy. Seeing this softer side to him was only making the attraction that much stronger.
‘Why not do it?’ He shrugged and the fact that he was clearly hiding something only made Anouk want to get to know him that much more.
It was galling, really.
Checking on little Isobel and consulting with her team was the opportunity Anouk needed to regroup, and as she worked she let the questions about Sol fall from her head, even as he worked alongside her. Her patient was her priority, as always. Soon enough it was time to take the girl to CT to scan her head and neck.
‘Can I go with her and hold her hand?’ asked Katie, the concern etched over her face jabbing into Anouk’s heart.
She usually let parents go in to be with their child, but unnecessarily exposing an eleven-year-old to ionising radiation, however short a burst, was different.
‘How about if I go in?’ Sol announced over her shoulder. ‘You can wait outside but I’ll hold Izzy’s hand for you?’
Katie eyed him slowly for a moment.
‘Okay, thank you,’ she conceded at length.
‘Great, you walk with Anouk here and your sister. Okay?’
Something jolted in Anouk’s chest at the weight of Sol’s gaze on her.
‘Fine with me. You’re going to get leaded?’
‘I thought I might. They probably won’t let me in the room otherwise.’
He made it out to be a light-hearted joke, but Anouk knew better. Usually only parents were allowed to accompany their younger children into the room when the imaging was in progress.
‘You don’t have any patients up on Neurology?’
‘I’ll sort it. The only one I’m worried about right now is a Mrs Bowman, but I’ll deal with that.’
The fact that Sol was putting himself into that position in lieu of the girls’ mother said a lot more about him than Anouk expected.
She couldn’t shake the impression that it was also more than he would normally like a colleague to know about him. Why did she feel compelled to suddenly test him?
‘Boost your reputation around here to compassionate hero as well as playboy, huh?’ she murmured discreetly, so only Sol heard.
He glanced at her sharply, then formed his mouth into something that most people might take to be a smile. She knew better.
‘Something like that,’ he agreed with deliberate cheerfulness that instantly revealed to Anouk that this was the last stunt he wanted to be pulling.
He didn’t fool her. She couldn’t have said how she knew it, but Sol was doing this for Isobel and for Katie, despite the fact that it was going to make him all the more eligible within the hospital’s pool of bachelors, and not because of it. Which suggested there was more to Sol Gunn than she had realised.
Anouk wished fervently that the concept weren’t such an appealing one.
‘Right.’ Shoving the knowledge from her head, she smiled brightly at Katie and then at her patient. ‘Let’s get you to CT, shall we, Izzy? Don’t worry, your sister will be right beside you until you go in, and then again the moment you come back out.’
And that sharp jab behind her eyes as Katie slipped past her to walk next to the gurney and take her sister’s hand in her own wasn’t tears, Anouk told herself fiercely.
Just as she wasn’t softening in her opinion of the Smoking Gun. She couldn’t afford to soften, because that would surely render him more perilous than ever.
